Am I reading this right, that the other Justices including Curtis did not have access to a printed copy of the majority opinion?
How could they concur or dissent without a printed copy of the opinion? I think these days all the Justices give all the others their rough draft opinions. It would seem that if someone changed their opinion significantly, they would also give a printed copy to the pothers.
It reads to me like the associates knew substantially what was in the original opinion as Taney read it March 6 but did not have the complete text. And of course they had no way of knowing how he was revising it.
Here's part of my March 6 excerpt from Fehrenbacher:
. . . Taney did not finish the work [on his opinion] to his own satisfaction by March 6. The opinion that he delivered on that date would have to be revised before it went into the record.